MARIA BC - Marathon

It's a flutter of shadows, fog and fine rain, an ethereal and faintly psychedelic folk, barely grazed by muffled percussion, weary guitars and worn-out keyboards: "Marathon" is another captivating chapter in a musical saga where the element of danger comes from the light, not the darkness.

Now at her third album, Maria BC opts for tones that are less descriptive and more exploratory: enveloping sounds embrace words and silences with an otherworldly spirituality, yet the slowcore march of these thirteen tracks is exceedingly wild, rattled by a constant restlessness that lurks within the leaden guitar chords. Even the author's mezzo-soprano inflections remain suspended in limbo, at times fading into a whisper ("Sabotage", "Safety"), while the meditative instrumental settings welcome more composite harmonies closer to singer-songwriter territory; the emotional tension is richer and more varied, and the whole thing takes on the shape of a clearly defined narrative.

That "Marathon" is the artist's most visceral album is clear from the very first notes of the title track, where bare, jagged sounds are laid raw with noise scratches. That it's followed by the exhortation of "As The Earth Turns" is telling: Maria BC pits man against technology, warning the listener of just how much our choices matter.

In recounting this eternal ethical dilemma, this endless struggle between chaos and life, the artist shapes folk ballads with unsettling sonic echoes ("The Sound"), tracks so stripped-back they become almost diaphanous ("Miami"), at times aesthetically seductive ("Rare") and even endowed with a thunderous physicality ("Port Authority").

"Marathon" is a shining example of creative and expressive freedom: Maria BC goes well beyond the rules of ambient-folk, shoegaze ecstasy and dream-pop allure, delivering an album that powerfully enters the same imaginative territory explored by Beth Gibbons ("Night & Day"), using different chromatic shades ("May This Rain"), and giving us one of the most original and incisive albums of the year so far.

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20/03/2026